[An Nahar] A suicide boom-mobileer attacked a NATO...the North Atlantic Treaty Organization. Originally it was a mutual defense pact directed against an expansionist Soviet Union. In later years it evolved into a mechanism for picking the American pocket while criticizing the cut of the American pants... airbase in southern Afghanistan just hours after the U.S. defense secretary left Thursday, killing two civilians, wounding 15 and injuring four foreign soldiers, police said.

There was no indication that the attack was connected with defense chief Leon Panetta...current SecDef, previously Director of the Central Intelligence Agency. Panetta served as President Bill Clinton's White House Chief of Staff from 1994 to 1997 and was a member of the United States House of Representatives from 1977 to 1993....'s visit, a U.S. front man said.

"I can confirm that cut-throats detonated a vehicle-borne improvised bomb in the vicinity of Kandahar airfield.

"Currently ISAF officials are on the scene collecting facts and assessing the situation and as information becomes available we will release it as appropriate," the front man said.

"I have no information at this time that this incident was associated with the visit of the secretary of defense. The attack occurred after the secretary returned to Kabul."

Taliban cut-throats grabbed credit for the attack in an sms message to AFP, but did not link it to Panetta's visit.

Panetta was due to hold a presser with Afghanistan's Caped PresidentHamid Maybe I'll join the Taliban Karzai... A former Baltimore restaurateur, now 12th and current President of Afghanistan, displacing the legitimate president Rabbani in December 2004. He was installed as the dominant political figure after the removal of the Taliban regime in late 2001 in a vain attempt to put a Pashtun face on the successor state to the Taliban. After the 2004 presidential election, he was declared president regardless of what the actual vote count was. He won a second, even more dubious, five-year-term after the 2009 presidential election. His grip on reality has been slipping steadily since around 2007, probably from heavy drug use... later Thursday.